33
Theo
I couldn’t stop smiling.
From the moment that Imogen walked through the double doors of that church, to right now, when she was dancing in my arms, officially as Mrs. Walsh … I hadn’t stopped smiling.
Who cares that I didn’t know ninety-five percent of the people in this room? We could have gotten married at city hall and I wouldn’t have cared. Our wedding could have been televised and I wouldn’t have cared. I knew for appearances sake that the Weston’s needed to throw this lavish affair, but the only thing that mattered to me was the woman in white who’d just agreed to spend her life with me.
A twinge in my heart had sadness flickering over my mood for a split second. The only thing that would make this day a once-in-a-lifetime thing would be if my parents were here.
“Where did you go?” Imogen kisses me softly as we sway to the melody the band is playing.
“Was just thinking about how my parents would love to be here.” I smile sadly.
Imogen’s lips turn down in a frown. “I’m so sorry, honey. Is this … should we have not gone so big?”
“Shush, don’t worry about that. It makes you happy. Not having them witness me marry the girl of my dreams is what I’m sad about, not that I’m surrounded by total strangers on my wedding day. I told you, I couldn’t care less about all of this. I just want you.”
“And now you have me. And I have you.” A megawatt smile covers her face.
“Do you think we could sneak out of here and start our honeymoon early?” My grin is wolfish.
Imogen sighs happily. “You’re incorrigible. But I love it.”
“I love you,” I whisper in her ear as we dance cheek to cheek.
“Let’s dance a while longer. We have our whole lives to spend in bed. But when do you get an entire evening to dance?”
I nod against her cheek, and we both know I’ll give her whatever she wants.
“Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you for the rest of our lives,” I voice my inner thoughts.
“Just not a trip to the World Bird Sanctuary?” Imogen teases.
I shudder, and it’s not fake. “You know my fear of birds … I’d never step foot in that place. Good luck getting out alive when they go all Hitchcock on you.”
She chuckles in my ear. “Okay, no birds. Just dancing.”
“And loving. I’m always loving you.”
My hand rubs slow, gentle circles around Imogen’s bump, remembering our wedding night as I wake to sunlight streaming in the cottage bedroom windows.
It’s a little crazy to think about all we’ve been through since then, and how much stronger it’s made us. Yes, life has put us through the fire and we passed the test. Barely, but we’re still here, still together. And as I rub her baby belly, it is completely true that the best is yet to come.
I’m hoping that our little girl will make her kicking debut for me.
I haven’t felt her yet, having not been naked around my wife in a while, and it’s the first thing I want when waking up in bed next to Imogen this morning. Well, that and kissing my gorgeous woman, who is still sleeping in my arms.
The last twelve hours have felt like a dream. I’d been waiting and waiting out on that beach, and then suddenly, she’d come to me like some kind of apparition. After keeping each other up for as long as Imogen could possibly stay awake, a pregnant woman needed her rest, we’d passed out.
I’d slept more peacefully than I had in two years.
“She’s not going to kick now that I’m awake. She only likes to do that when I want to sleep. We have a stubborn girl on our hands here.”
“Hmm, I don’t know who she could possibly take after …” I kiss Imogen’s temple as she stretches, shaking off sleep and opening her eyes to the day.
“Oh no, she couldn’t possibly be developing a personality to match that of her father’s.” She gives a small laugh as she begins to sit up.
“Hey, lie down. I plan on us staying here the entire day,” I protest as she swings her legs out of bed.
“And I’m not arguing that point. But your daughter has been kicking at my bladder for six hours straight, and I have to pee so badly that it might burst.”
“Man, that proper New England upbringing really does show,” I call after her, a teasing laugh following my wife as she hightails it to the bathroom.
As she walks back to the bed, in nothing but gray cotton bikini underwear, my cock stirs. Her breasts have doubled in size, and it’s true when they say that pregnant women actually glow. Her skin is iridescent, and her blond hair is thick and long. She’s a vision, a woman straight out of a Grimm’s fairy tale story.
“I get hard just looking at you.” My hands go behind my head, shamelessly checking her out as she climbs back into bed.
“You’ve been real hard up to say that. My stomach is enormous and I’m beginning to get cankles. I didn’t even know that was possible.”
I put a finger to her lips. “Don’t you dare say that about my wife. Besides, I found a new fetish I’m into. Pregnant Imogen Walsh’s. That’s my new fetish.”
“Oh, yeah?” She pulls me down to her, the sheets slipping down our bodies as we kiss lazily.
Someone’s stomach growls, protesting our soon-to-be fourth round of sex.
“I guess that means we need some breakfast.” I laugh.
Making quick work of feeding my wife and growing child, I hurry down to the kitchen and whip up a quick egg scramble, some toast, juice, and berry salad.
“Breakfast, my queen.” I set the tray down on the bed.
She doesn’t answer, her eyes cast down, lost in thought.
“I’m sorry about Toxell. And the strain that my trust fund and family put on our marriage. You were right, the money was a big problem, even if we never spoke about it.” Immy turns to me, her green eyes apologetic.
She couldn’t have shocked me more in that moment. “Where is this coming from?”
A sigh. “I just see how we are here, on the island. It’s where you feel most comfortable, and I took you away from that. I took you into this world of ridiculous excess … my eyes have been opened to that more in the last couple of months than they ever have before.”
It takes me a minute to find what I want to say. “I want you to know that in no way did any of my unhappiness with the Weston wealth have to do with you. I admire your strength, your intelligence, and I do not care if you are the breadwinner. Really, I’ll be the stay at home dad, you bring home the bacon. The thing I had a problem with was the way that your trust fund, the money and all that came with it was hung over our heads. It was like this burden instead of a gift. There was too much of it … so much so that any human would forget the value of a hard-earned dollar. Having that much money, it changes people, baby. And I don’t want to be the kind of person with that much money, I’ve never wanted that.”
“And I don’t want that either, not anymore. You know that I never knew anything but that. The thing I feel most guilty about was that you felt you needed to stay at a job you hated just to impress me. Theo, I thought we were better than that. I was your wife, you could have told me how you felt.”
I sigh. “I wanted you to look at me on the same level as all of those men at the events we attended.”
“I despise those men. Not one of them has an ounce of the credibility that you possess.”
Stroking her hair, I soak in one of the biggest compliments she could ever give me. “So now that we’re poor, what do we do?”
We both laugh. “We’re not poor. I have my trust fund, my family can’t take that away from me. And trust me, they’re not going to make a scene about any of this. They’re WASPs, remember? The best path of resistance is no resistance at all. Their strategy is to sweep everything under the rug and act like nothing is happening.”
She has a point. “Okay, true. And while I would love to live off of your hefty inheritance and surf the world, living out of a vintage mobile home … I also have the drive to work. What are we going to do about that?”
Our bedroom is silent for a moment, the sunlight twinkling through the curtains.
“We could start our own construction company.”
My body jerks up, and I stare at Imogen as she stays laid back on the pillows. “What?”
Those green eyes are so sure. “We could. Think about it, you know everything there is to know about architecture, building, materials, timelines. You know the ins and outs of the construction world and have connections. And I know business. I know about financing and contracts, about hiring the right people. We could do this.”
Imogen looks so determined that I felt the spark of her idea and hope begin to light me up too. “You would really want to do that? Construction? You could do anything. Start your own company or be hired at any number of Fortune 500 firms.”
She sets down the piece of toast she’s munching on. “But none of that would matter or make me happy. You are what makes me happy. Seeing you happy, seeing you spend time in Nantucket, the place you love most. You sacrificed for me for five years, and not that this would be a sacrifice for me, but you deserve to have your time to shine.”
I took a sip of juice. “Let’s think about it, okay? We have a lot of life changes coming, and starting a business together might be more than we can handle right now.”
Imogen nods, but I knew from the twinkle in those emerald eyes that she was already putting her plan into motion.